Trace

Prologue

Jude's last words to me were have a nice life. We never fought before. Our final year of high school was marked by tense conversations - I think he knew that we were growing apart. I didn't want to. But there's just this natural progression to everything, it's as if we had run our course. That just like everything else in life, we had an end as well.

He got into his top choice, and I got into some school on the other side of the country. I'd always wanted to be far from my parents but I never actually thought I'd be far from Jude. He wanted a whole new outlook on life and to go into engineering. I always admired that he found comfort in change.

Every winter since we were ten years old, he'd take me out onto his balcony and we'd look out at the fireworks as we rang in the new year. Always, he'd tell me 'we're going to do something, we're going to leave a mark and when we look back on it from our hovercrafts and spaceship dinners, we'll have no regrets.'

I believed him. Wholeheartedly, without a doubt I believed in Jude and his grand ideas. When I wasn't up to it, I knew Jude could dream for the both of us. He was my Jude. It's that same feeling you get as a kid, when you derive some wacky, personal meaning out of seemingly nothing, and no one else can possibly understand or possess it.

It's unique, it's yours, and you indulge in it whenever you can. Everyone wants to feel special, or at least have something close that could serve as simulation. I cherished that Jude was never quite the same with anyone else than when he was with me. It was hard for me to make friends, but I had him. When in doubt there he was.

Senior year hit like a freight train. Because we had applied to colleges, the reality of our eventual flight from all we have ever known, scared me shit-less. For once, I thought for more than a minute as to what life would be like without him. Jude didn't seem to mind.

He found a girlfriend, decided he loved her, and began drinking. After that, he stopped calling, and after that, I hardly saw him at all. He'd give me a tight smile in the hallway occasionally, and I being the insecure, pathetic one, lapped up whatever I could get.

December nineteenth, my parents threw their annual ugly Christmas sweater party. Jude's parents forced him to go, and for the whole night he was mine again. Until he got shit-faced off all the egg-nog and threw up in my tub.

That was when I broke and finally refused to ignore what was happening to us. I told him everything, accused him of such treachery, and shouted, shouted so much that even I became sick of my voice. I wanted him to understand, to apologize, but most of all I just needed him to miss me.

He left, and Christmas eve, Jude got into a fender bender. I heard at least four different stories, but I believe the one that I overheard when his mother visited for a lunch. He had pulled over on a dark, wooded road to exchange information after the small tiff. But in the process, a cement truck had come barreling down and crushed Jude from the side. He was paralyzed and suffered severe, shattering blows. He died in the hospital later that night.

Now, I'm back from my first semester of college. Winter break started a week ago, and soon we'll be celebrating the new year. But there won't be a Jude or fireworks. And I'll have regrets. Regrets of things I should have said, and shouldn't have. He'll never know.

"Ellie?"

I hold my gaze with the distorted pale face that gleams back at me from the butter knife.

"Ellie," My mother places a clammy palm on my shoulder.

I crane my chin towards her, and she smiles, but her eyes are wary.

"The garbage, could you put it by the curb?"

I nod and excuse myself from the table. My parents had invited over some friends for a nice dinner, emphasis on the word nice because so far, it was mostly pot roast and gloating about their children who were off saving the world . Julia is studying hard at Princeton, almost finished with her thesis on feminist roles within literature, while Rosamund is teaching illiterate children in Cambodia - who the hell names their kid Rosamund? I've successfully dodged every career question that has been sent my way with a couple 'exploring my options', and a dash of, 'maybe business?' thrown into the mix.

My mother simply nods and makes sure her lipstick hasn't stained her teeth. My father carves diligently at the roast. My older brother is off destroying zombies in the basement through our Xbox. I stroll into the foyer, rustling through the hall closet until I find my jacket beneath all the Jersey housewife mink.

Stepping outside, I mind the black ice along the driveway and the freezing chill that immediately nips at my cheeks. I sigh, letting the puff of air hang before me in a white cloud.

I haul the garbage can from the side of Jennifer's Lexus, silently swearing her choice in vehicle and placement. Cautiously, I heave the trash between the parked cars and eventually make it to the curb, parking the can with triumph and balance.

Mistake to wear stockings and a dress, my body is frozen. I scrape the can closer to the sidewalk, but hear more than just the whine of plastic. I turn to the end of the street, taking in the empty road and one dim streetlamp.

Snow cakes every doorstep and trims the naked branches of the neighborhood oak trees. A thin pillar of smoke whispers from the chimney of our neighboor's, and I glance towards the sky where only a few stars are visible. Nothing.

I turn back and weave past car bumpers until I edge on to the salt-crusted pathway. A metallic glint catches my eye, and I bend down towards the small earring that appears among the frost. I pluck the piece boredly, and roll the jewelry over between my dried fingers. Probably Cheryl's, she mentioned missing one.

A faint, hardly even audible snap hisses from behind me, and I whirl towards the fence beyond my driveway. A branch, drowning beneath the weight of piled snow has finally broken off and fallen. My lips sting from the frigid, December air. Get a grip, Ellie.

I clutch the earring and step back toward the house until I'm hit, hard in the chest by a wall. A gloved hand suddenly reaches out and clamps itself over my mouth, leading by the abrupt shove of an arm around my back. I'm squeezed with nowhere to run, my lungs crushed, panic setting in but I can't scream.

My eyes are clamped shut, covered by the foreign hand's woolen fingers. My entire body seizes with fear and I wonder if my family knows how long I've been gone. Musky cologne burns my nostrils and I pant against the gloved palm of my captor.

"Ellie. Ellie, please, calm down."

I squirm against the steel hold of the stranger, but the voice triggers a buried reaction. I grow limp, fear subsiding until finally, I try to peer through the cracks between the man's fingers.

"Promise you won't scream."

I know this voice.

The hand slips gently from my lips, warmth fading until I'm face to face with the one person I thought I'd never see again.

"Jude," I breathe.